


...Is Not Rendered Harmless

by Nevcolleil



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28407903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: Cas went to the Surface hoping to catch a glimpse of the man he would most likely soon be ordered to approach. He caught a lot more than that.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt: "Angels" are those who live high above the streets in the technological splendor of "Heaven"; "normals" are those who fight for their lives every day below the ever-present clouds of smog. On his first surreptitious trip to ground level, Castiel has to help Dean to fight off the "demons" from below street-level.

‘ _The road to Hell is paved with good intentions_ ,’ they say. Castiel doesn’t know if that adage explains the cause of his current predicament or not; he really hadn’t had the intention of coming this close to Hell - the subterranean quagmire that lies far beneath Terra, accessible only from the Surface through ancient tunnels and crumbling pipes.

The word ‘intent’ implies consciousness; it implies purpose. Cas is not his brother Gabriel. He sees no purpose in meddling with demons - the wanton criminals who are forced to live in Hell, away from the punitive reach of the angels. Demons are… an abomination. They are those who’ve decided that if they cannot afford the priveleges of angels - biometric enhancements, spacial teleportation, access to the spires and tower residences of Heaven - they will _take_ them. Nevermind that improperly installed biometrics almost always warp the mind and deform the body. Nevermind that a faulty teleporter can cause hideous physical mutations. Nevermind that intruders into Heaven are doomed to a fate worse than death. The Archangels, who govern angels like Cas, are almost religious in their fervor about the “sanctity” and exclusivity of Heaven. Old families with Old blood (and Old money) live above the smog and gloom of Terra - the great city that now stretches over the entirety of the Surface. The angels’ ancestors were the first to attain the biometrics that changed the world - that raised their chosen number above the rest of the dirty, hungry, sickly masses; above poverty and illness and violence.

And the angels, the Archangels have decided, are the only ones who deserve this salvation. Intruders into Heaven are interrogated, tortured. And then given the worst punishment Cas can imagine: they are sent back. Back into Hell. Where their roughshod biometrics will not allow them to eventually expire, as the normals (humans who live in Terra without enhancements) do.

No, Cas had no intention of nearing Hell or the demons. The adage that best explains his folly is this: ‘ _curiosity killed the cat_.’ Cas teleported to the Surface, into Terra, because he was curious. He’d heard the stories of a normal - a normal the Prophets are saying shows a ninety-seven percent mathematical probability of being Chosen. The angels can’t keep Heaven populated alone - the genetic pool would have stagnated generations ago - so they monitor the normals, looking for a bloodline theoretically compatible with the angels and their biometrics. Every so often a normal becomes a Chosen and is allowed to enter Heaven, to live amongst the angels and contribute to the population. Sometimes the Choice is based upon the normal’s biometric assessments alone. Sometimes a normal may exhibit extraordinary intelligence, strength, or virtue and gain favor amongst the Archangels through reports of his or her exploits.

Dean Winchester has gained a lot of favor. His many successes in diffusing demon uprisings have become legend among the normals.

Cas went to the Surface hoping to catch a glimpse of the man he would most likely soon be ordered to approach. He caught a lot more than that.

“Release him at once!” Cas throws back the hood of his cloak and reveals himself to the demons. When they only snarl at him, deformed faces twisted further into ugly sneers and gruesome scowls - but do not release the man slumped between them - he pulls off his leather gloves.

His skin feels clammy in the muggy Surface air; his eyes sting. He wonders what this exposure would do to his body - so used to the purified air and even climes of Heaven - if not for his biometrics and shudders. “Release him or die,” Cas says when the demons don’t relent.

If anything… the demons seem to grasp Winchester tighter. He makes a noise - a moan - but doesn’t move. One demon takes a step in Cas’s direction.

It’s all the provocation he needs. He closes his eyes and slows his breathing. He feels his G.R.A.C.E. kick in - the generator and processor embedded in his chest which controls all of his biometric units. Its energy flows through him - a warmth inside his skin, a hum along his nerve endings. Cas opens his eyes and smiles.

The demon starts towards him and he calmly holds up one hand, palm outward. A wave of energy bursts from him in a flash of white light. Its forceful enough to rock Cas back on his heels, but he keeps his footing.

The demon shrieks as it goes up in flames. Nothing is left when the light fades but ashes.

The other demons are stunned. For long moments, they only stare. Their awe, Cas knows, is not for what he has done - the angels’ power is considerable, but no secret to demons; their awe is for where he has done it. When is the last time an angel walked on the Surface? And intervened in the affairs of normals, under no guise?

When the demons recover they do not discuss what to do in light of this new development; Cas isn’t surprised. Demons aren’t exactly known for their higher thinking skills. They attack - like pack animals. They drop Winchester, who grunts as he hit’s the ground and curls into a ball on the wet pavement.

The demons rush at Cas. He barely moves. By the time the group reaches him, only two are left, and they only get close enough to leave a fine sheen of ash on his cloak when they disintegrate.

Cas lowers his hand. Then he runs to Winchester.

Kneeling at Winchester’s side, Cas forgets himself. He faced those demons calmly enough; it’s what he does, after all. But he has next to no experience with facing normals. He’s certainly never faced one leaking so much blood as Winchester is at this moment. Cas is so preoccupied with the blood that he reaches out to Winchester before his palm can cool or he can think to put his glove back on. Winchester is wearing a short-sleeved shirt, torn and blood-stained. Cas’s hand, when he grabs the normal’s shoulder to turn him onto his back, touches unprotected skin and - still too hot for mortal flesh after dispatching those demons - Winchester screams.

His back arches and it takes Cas a full moment to figure out why.

Cas’s hand has burned him. There’s a hissing sound beneath the sound of Winchester’s scream and Cas removes his hand quickly.

“Oh- Oh no…” Winchester’s skin has blistered beneath Cas’s touch; the perfect imprint of Cas’s hand is raised on Winchester’s shoulder in a red, puffy mark that will scar if left to normal medical procedures.

Cas fumbles on his glove and fumbles for words. “I- I apologize. I deeply regret that I-”

But his words are lost on Winchester, who has passed out - from pain? Or exhaustion maybe. Cas isn’t sure how long the demons had him, or how they got him, for that matter. He only knows where they were taking him. An ancient tunnel of stone and cement - what the normals call a “subway” - is just near here; an entrance to Hell.

Cas shudders for the second time today, thinking what would have happened to this man in the demons’ clutches. Roughshod biometrics are a horrific thought to an angel, but the thought of having used, out-of-date, filthy - maybe even nonfunctional - biometrics forced onto you… in some dank subterranean cavern…

With his hand safely covered, Cas gathers Winchester into his arms. Like most angels, his skeletal structure has been reinforced, so he can support Winchester’s weight easily but Winchester is no small man.

In Cas’s arms, Winchester’s head rolls back and Cas can finally see his face. It’s Cas’s turn to be stunned. Beneath the blood and the grime and the rainwater… Winchester is oddly-

 _Beautiful_. With no biometric enhancements. No structural reinforcements. Having lived a quarter of a lifetime on the Surface, he’s still beautiful.

Cas doesn’t know what to do with the thought, but he does think it. He activates his home teleporter with the transmitter in his G.R.A.C.E. and returns to Heaven plus one.


	2. Angel In a Party Dress (And Not Happy About It)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm not having any luck." Cas's monotone was loads less creepy when he was a grown up dude.
> 
> Also? A lot less problematic. A mother waiting outside the dressing stalls near Dean glances at him through the corner of her eye. Dean pretends he doesn't notice her pretending not to notice him.
> 
> "Um. Jiggle it a little bit."
> 
> "I have ' _jiggled it_ ' a great bit. The zipper is stuck. It will not move by being ' _jiggled_ '."

It's not that Dean hasn't wished, a thousand times, that Cas had chosen a female vessel...

But a female vessel of an _appropriate age_ would have made a lot more sense. Dean still gets the sometimes curious, sometimes disgusted looks Cas's misunderstanding of personal space and body language has always earned them. Only now, the looks are a lot more heated, and a lot more likely to get Dean arrested. And if that wasn't bad enough... It turns out that child vessels... require a lot more upkeep than the average adult vessel. They have to bathe, for example. And eat semi-regularly. And change their clothes. Human things.

Cas isn't so great with human things. He's even worse, apparently, with little girl things. Which puts him at about Dean's level of ignorance, because Dean knows about as much about little girls as he does about high return investment portfolios.

Sam does freaky well with the little girl stuff, but they've already learned: Cas's weirdo behavior in a little girl's body, with one man, gets people's attention. Cas's behavior in the company of two men gets them called on to the cops. And Sam's got research to do today, so shopping duty falls to Dean.

"I'm not having any luck." Cas's monotone was loads less creepy when he was a grown up dude.

Also? A lot less problematic. A mother waiting outside the dressing stalls near Dean glances at him through the corner of her eye. Dean pretends he doesn't notice her pretending not to notice him.

"Um. Jiggle it a little bit."

"I have ' _jiggled it_ ' a great bit. The zipper is stuck. It will not move by being ' _jiggled_ '."

Dean sighs inwardly. This isn't going to end well. It never does.

"Have you tried-"

" _Dean_." Cas tried calling him "Dad" for a while. To see if that would help sell their performance as two perfectly normal human beings with a normal reason for being together to whomever they might meet.

The experience was painfully uncomfortable for everyone involved, and they quickly nixed the idea altogether.

"Uh, yeah?"

"Help me remove this dress or I will remove it through means that will necessitate its purchase."

The mother isn't even trying to pretend anymore - she's outright staring. Dean represses the urge to stick his tongue out at her.

"SAT vocabulary practice," he says lamely. "She's GT.". He has no idea what that means, but Sam used the excuse once and it seemed to work.

Dean lets himself into the dressing stall with Castiel and tries once again, as he has to do several times a day, to wrap his mind around the fact that there's a badass angel of the Lord inside that small, blonde girl, currently wearing a half-unzipped sheath of fluffy, pink material covered in little silk roses.

This is it. Dean is going to get Cas to ask Claire if they can start dressing like a pint-sized biker chick. The party dresses are giving Dean migraines.

Cas's face is somber. "The taffeta itches, Dean," Cas says. "Remove it _now_." Cas isn't generally so demanding... But Dean doesn't blame him. If it was Dean trapped in a taffeta dress in public, he'd be pretty anxious to get out of it himself.

"Alright, just don't do anything stupid. We can't afford another party dress you aren't going to wear."

Cas waits patiently for Dean to try to pull and pry and, yes, _jiggle_ the dress's zipper free. Dean does everything he can think of - he even contorts himself into position to use his teeth but the zipper stays like a sonofabitch.

At first, Cas makes those little 'hmm' noises of disapproval that he's always made; they aren't quite the same in Claire's soft, girl voice. Then he starts tapping his foot - that habit came with the new body.

Finally, Cas says, "That's it, Dean. Just rip it."

Dean rubs a hand over his face. "I'm not gonna rip off your dress, Cas," Dean tells him - whispers, much like Cas ought to do. "Hold on, we can-"

"You ripped off the dress I got bloody in Monte Carlo," Cas says, too-loud voice sounding, like, _megaphone worthy_ loud in the silent stall, in this awkward situation.

"Cas-"

"You have your knife, Dean, so use it before I develop a _rash_." A part of Cas's new, closer-to-humanity experience is dealing with human inconveniences like the common cold and plant allergies. Cas got exposed to poison ivy on a hunt, and since then the threat of a rash has become his greatest fear. He's assured Dean, on more than one occasion, that another rash on Claire's body will result in a smiting.

"Oh God," Dean moans.

Cas scowls. "Don't blaspheme," he scolds for the umpteenth time.

Sure enough - the damage has been done. A woman comes over the store intercom, momentarily replacing the pansy pop rock that was playing quietly. "Attention associates," says the voice, "We have a code 14 in department 3; code 14 in department 3."

Dean doesn't think a "code 14" means 'Crazy Knife-Wielding Pervert With Little Girl'. But it's probably pretty close.

"Cas?"

"Yes, Dean?"

"Zap us out of here."

"You said-"

"Forget what I said! I'll pick up some Tums on the way back to the motel. _Zap us the fuck out of here._ "

"And the-"

"Yeah, yeah, zap away the dress."

Cas smiles. It's almost not creepy now when he smiles that wide.

"Thank you," he says sincerely.

By the time security jimmies open the door on the stall, Cas and Dean are gone and the stall is empty.

Empty except for a strangely singed pink taffeta dress.


End file.
